Chisholm's Third
by murderofonerose
Summary: Proposals, as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by others. Ford/Arthur
1. Part 1

**Warning:** Contains slash of the rather angsty variety

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words:** 1452

Hi there. I mostly wrote this over the summer, and am just now getting around to posting it. Hopefully this will make up for my slowness in posting new chapters of Zen. _

Also, books of Murphy's laws and so on are great fun. I recommend them to pessimists the world over.

* * *

**Part One**

* * *

Excerpt from pages thirteen and fourteen of the 9_th__ edition of __Murphy's Law, and other reasons why things go gnorw!__ by a Mr. Arthur Bloch, published on the planet Earth in the year 1979:_

_**CHISHOLM'S THIRD LAW**_

_Proposals, as understood by the proposer, will be judged otherwise by others._

_Corollaries:_

_1. If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will._

_2. If you do something which you are sure will meet with everybody's approval, somebody won't like it._

_3. Procedures devised to implement the purpose won't quite work._

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy _has no entry on Murphy's Law or any of the related axioms mentioned in Mr. Bloch's book, but if it did it would probably read almost exactly the same, save for many lengthy footnotes – including the observation that most of these are rather optimistic. _

* * *

His brain and emotions were on deep freeze when it came to Ford.

They conversed often, at least in theory, if it could be called conversation. Neither of them had much time to actually say much with all the drinking and running around trying not to get shot at. Arthur could think of nothing new left to wonder or feel. To try would be… dangerous. Not necessarily because it would hurt (it would, if he could allow himself to feel it) but because it was nothing he hadn't already thought about three million times before and, like the various semi-interesting gadgets on the _Heart of Gold_, he had run out of new angles to look at it from. To do so he would have to leave the ship entirely, which was impossible as long as it was in space, and – since this was a metaphor for his brain – it always was. And even when it wasn't he was in a bar watching Ford get drunk and do increasingly obscene things with the other patrons, getting more and more drunk himself at an only slightly more reasonable pace.

No, Arthur didn't think he had the answers to anything. Not to Life, not to the Universe, not to Everything, and certainly not to this.

And the only solution his brain could come up with was, _I need to talk to him about it. _

To which another part of his brain replied, _How many times have you opened your mouth to try and nothing's come out?_

To which a third part added, _And who knows if he would even want to talk about it when you're probably the only one who's been thinking it?_

To which a fourth part answered, _Besides, you know enough to know that he'll take just about anyone, so what would make you special?_

To which a fifth part mentioned, _If you thought you could be special to him you would have said something a long time ago, so why are you still agonizing over something you already consider a foregone conclusion?_

To which a sixth part said, _But maybe you're wrong._

To which the first part repeated, _So clearly I need to talk to him about it._

This never helped, which is why Arthur never thought about it. He was living as if he didn't have a decision to make – whether to move on or to continue pining for someone he could never have – and yet his life was ruled by it. By Ford, and everything the frustratingly amazing alien said and did, didn't say and didn't do.

After all, if it hadn't been for Ford he would have been killed along with everyone else on Earth.

Arthur felt as though he might be able to keep this up for the rest of his life… just tagging aimlessly along after Ford to the end of his days, wondering if the ginger-haired Betelgeusian would ever take the hint. Because whether it was obvious or not, Arthur couldn't bring himself to state it.

* * *

Then came a night when Zaphod and Ford got terrifically drunk in the ship's galley – not so unusual an occurrence. Arthur wondered if life was just one big drinking game to them as he hauled his friend to his feet in spite of Zaphod's very slurred protest.

"If you can't even lift the bottle anymore," he replied crossly, "and, in case you were wondering, that's exactly why your glass has been empty the last twelve times you've tried to drink out of it, then you might as well give up and pass out for the night."

Ford squirmed ineffectually as Arthur tried to half-carry him to his cabin, and Arthur really wished he wouldn't. "B'Arth'r…" he mumbled.

"No buts. Not when you find it that hard to articulate vowels."

"Wha'r those?"

Arthur sighed. "That's more or less my point."

He'd almost made it – in the door, at the foot of the bed – when the arm carelessly draped over his shoulders tightened. Ford turned, leaning heavily against him.

"How come you nev'r get ver' drunk? 'S fun." His other arm swung around, looping low around Arthur's waist. "I c'n prove it…"

_Danger, danger_, Arthur's brain was screaming. _For the sake of your sanity and emotional well-being, drop him now and run!_ But it couldn't convince his body to do either of those things.

"F-Ford, I don't think—"

"You _watch_ me," Ford interrupted. His chin was resting on the shoulder of the worn dressing gown, and their faces were so close that his eyes were going a little cross-eyed trying to keep them trained on Arthur's. "I see. Don' think I don'. An' you…" He wagged his finger precariously close to Arthur's nose. "You think I drink too much… silly monkey, I drink jus' enough. There's lots you don't get, y'see?"

He moved – stumbled, really, forcing Arthur to catch him and ultimately get him where he was going – until he was in front of his (by now very uncomfortable) friend.

"If you wan' me, jus' say."

"Ford." He tried to say it firmly, but it came out as a whimper. "Stop…"

That was when Ford gave up all pretense of having both feet on the ground. It was enough to make Arthur lose his balance, overcorrect, and fall onto the bed with Ford on top of him. To his horror, he became painfully aware of Ford's erection pressing against his stomach – and his own against Ford's thigh. He couldn't help it, it just… happened.

_Not like this,_ he thought desperately, trying to push the drunken Betelgeusian off him.

But Ford wasn't having any of it. He buried himself in the skin of Arthur's neck, using the arms trapped under him as leverage for more contact.

_I could be anyone, he wouldn't care…_ "St-ahh, ahh, ooh… p-please…"

It felt… god, he couldn't even think to figure out how it felt. Wonderful and terrible, smooth and razor-sharp. By the time Ford had fumbled the dressing gown open and pushed the pajama top up as far as it could go (buttons were out of the question) Arthur had given in. A hand slipped down the front of his pajama bottoms. By the time Ford kissed him on the mouth, all tongue and lips and teeth and hints of lemons wrapped around large gold bricks, he didn't know what else to do other than let it happen, even kiss back.

Ford broke away slightly and murmured against his lips, "Y're all salty tasting. Wha's…" He squinted blearily at him. "Crying?"

Arthur's lips twitched, but he couldn't form words. His entire body was trembling and he was, indeed, crying without having realized it.

Ford was suddenly very, awfully still.

"Arthur?"

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut.

Ford jerked away, scrambling until he fell off the bed. His tie, already dangling loosely around his neck (the jacket and argyle sweater were gone, who knows when or to where) caught on something and he ducked clumsily out of it. Then he was up, staggering to his feet, and stumbling out of the door, which practically glowed at the privilege of being useful in the midst of such a hasty exit.

The Earth had just exploded again.

Tea had never existed.

The Universe was a dark and sinister place, and that wasn't paranoia because it really was doing all of this to him on purpose, out of spite.

Shaking, Arthur worked his own hand into his pants, because the last thing he needed was for the last thing he remembered feeling to be Ford's hand, stroking… and then deciding he wasn't even worth the bother. He buried his face in the pillow, pleading silently to know why he'd always expected it would end up like this, somehow, and why he'd had to be proven right – but Ford's scent clinging to the bed sheets didn't have an answer for him.


	2. Part 2

**Warning:** Contains slash of the rather angsty variety

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur, Zaphod/Trillian

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words:** 1732

* * *

**Part Two**

* * *

In the morning, Trillian found Zaphod passed out in the galley. He looked well and truly out of it and somewhat comfortable on the floor, so she left him there and went to the bridge.

There she found Ford, looking decidedly less comfortable curled into an awkward ball on one of the chairs. Most of his layers of clothing were gone, including his tie, and he wasn't wearing shoes. Mildly concerned – if perhaps only because if the missing articles were going to turn up in random places (in the toaster for instance, or knotted tightly around the temperature controls) she wanted fair warning first – she put a hand on his shoulder and shook him awake.

As soon as he was roused, he gave a surprised shout that sent her jumping back, and promptly fell out of his chair.

He hit the floor, and when he groaned and curled up again instead of bouncing back up she started to really worry.

"How drunk did you _get_ last night?"

Ford opened one eye and gazed up at her wearily. "Don't know. Lots." He paused. "Arthur hates me."

She blinked. "Why?"

"I kissed him. It made him cry."

"…_Why_?"

The eye closed again and he pressed his forehead against his knees. "Don't know. Thought he wanted me to… My head is killing me."

Trillian's hand went up to pinch the bridge of her nose automatically, because even if she wasn't already getting a headache of her own this was rapidly turning into one of those days where it would probably creep up on her soon anyway. There was enough animosity on the ship between Arthur and Zaphod, and Marvin and – well, anyone who had to spend more that sixty seconds within earshot of Marvin. The last thing any of the occupants of the _Heart of Gold_ needed was a falling out.

There was always the hope that Ford had been so drunk he'd hallucinated it, but for some reason that didn't seem too promising.

"I thought," she said slowly, "that Arthur liked girls. I thought that _you_ liked girls."

"Nothing wrong with girls," Ford said in a muffled voice.

"So why did you kiss Arthur?"

"Nothing wrong with Arthur, either."

"…And he didn't like it?"

"Don't know. I thought he did, but… crying." He looked up her, this time with both bleary eyes broadcasting his confusion. "He kissed back. He didn't do anything to stop me. He may have said it a few times, but…"

"Ford," she groaned.

"It's not my fault," he protested. "It's Arthur, he… I've seen him looking at me when he thinks I'm not paying attention to him. And he's always trailing after me and letting me talk him into things he obviously doesn't really want to do. And sometimes he looks just like he's about to say something important, but then he opens his mouth and something about the weather comes out. _And_ he kissed back…"

Ford's forehead scrunched up, and Trillian was reminded of small children trying to work out something quite a bit more complex than the things they usually thought about, like what to build next with their wooden blocks.

"But I can't figure out if he wants me or not," he finished, sounding disappointed by this conclusion.

Trillian sighed. "Okay. First of all, sit in the chair like a normal person." She watched him do so – suspecting, from his slightly wobbling movements that he was still feeling some of last night's drinks – and sat in one of the chairs next to him. "Second, it sounds like you're taking this personally. In an ego way. Don't. If Arthur doesn't like men that way, it's nothing to do with you, all right?"

Ford nodded reluctantly.

"Good. Now, what exactly happened? Please tell me you didn't try to jump him."

"Well…" Ford fidgeted.

She stared at him for a moment, then dropped her head into her hands. "Oh my god. It must run in the family."

"What?"

Her head snapped up. "You can't just surprise people with wanting to have sex all the time! Not when they're not expecting it, anyway," she amended, feeling a little bad when she saw Ford's startled expression. That part of the conversation was something she might have to repeat with Zaphod sometime, though. "I'm just saying, Arthur really doesn't seem like the kind of person who would expect it. But… as long as you didn't try to rape him or anything, I don't think it could have been bad enough to make him actually _hate_ you."

Ford stared blankly at her. "What's rape?"

Yes, she definitely had a headache now.

* * *

Arthur was awake, but didn't stop staring at the ceiling when the door opened with a whispered "Thank you" – whoever it coming in must have asked it to be quiet in the hopes of not bothering him if he was asleep.

_Maybe it's Ford, come to get his clothes back and ask me to leave, _he thought dully.

"Arthur? Are you awake?"

Not Ford – Trillian. Arthur lifted his head from the pillow in muted surprise.

"I brought you some breakfast. Thought you could use some… And I bullied the Nutri-matic into making something that doesn't taste all that different from tea."

He dropped his head again. "What did Ford tell you?" he asked hoarsely.

"Things," she replied matter-of-factly. "I tried to get him to come in here and talk to you, but he honestly believes that you probably hate him now."

"…What?"

"Yeah, that's what I said."

She sat on the edge of the bed and all but dropped the tray on him. Arthur sat up reluctantly, if only because he didn't want to accidentally spill something hot all over himself.

"So." Trillian looked at him steadily. "Do you?"

Arthur stared down at the tray. "Do I what?"

"Hate him. For whatever happened last night."

He picked up a fork and began to prod the eggs and pancakes on his plate. "I…" Deep freeze. His insides felt rock-solid. "Don't… Don't tell him?"

"I solemnly swear," she promised, holding up one hand and putting the other on an imaginary Bible. "Honestly, I don't want to be passing notes back and forth between the two of you forever. You're both adults… even if you are also men."

Arthur stabbed a bit of egg with his fork. He brought it up to his mouth and sniffed it cautiously, then put the fork down without eating. His hands wrapped around the glass of not-tea, which, even if it wasn't quite right, was at least warm and felt good against his palms.

"I don't hate him," he said quietly, not looking at Trillian.

"Oh good, that's a relief."

"But I can't talk to him."

If there had been a desk handy, Trillian would have executed an expression of extreme exasperation known to certain segments of the (former) Earth's young-adult population as _headdesk_. Since the closest thing to a desk was a bedside table on the other side of the bed which was only a foot tall, she opted for the similar but not quite as satisfying _facepalm_.

"Why not?" she asked, somehow managing to sound patient.

"Because I… It's… I don't know, it's too…" Arthur clutched the warm cup to his chest, trying desperately to thaw the tight feeling out of it. "Look, I don't even know what to _think_! How am I supposed to tell him that maybe I… maybe I… when I really have no idea what I'm talking about?"

Trillian held up a hand, staring quizzically at him. "Hold on a minute, Arthur. Are you saying that you didn't mind the kissing and so on, or that this has been on your mind for a while?"

Arthur stared back at her helplessly, then took a tentative sip of his drink. "You know, this isn't half bad…"

"Oh no you don't. Answer the question."

"You don't understand! I've been trying, but I have no idea where to begin!"

She shrugged. "Well, they say that when you can't go forward it's because you're moving in the wrong direction and something has to change. From what I hear, last night something changed in a big way. So try again. And if that's not enough…" She paused grimly. "If you don't agree to talk with him by the time I leave this room, I'm going to go tell him that you said you'll hate him forever and want him to come in here immediately so you can tell him exactly why."

Arthur paled. "You wouldn't."

"I'm getting to the point where I would," she assured him. "Come on. What are you afraid of?"

* * *

Meanwhile, Ford had relocated Zaphod and the alcohol, and they were having a go at getting terrifically drunk again.

"You should jus' do 'im," Zaphod was saying confidently as he tipped some purple liquid into his glass and stirred it in with the rather runny blue that was already there. By the violence of the reaction that ensued in the glass it could be concluded that these were not supposed to be mixed, but he didn't seem to mind. "Get the semi 'volved whatsit outta your system."

"Maybe I would," replied Ford gloomily, "if he'd let me."

"I thought y'said he was going for it."

"He was, but…"

Zaphod shook his heads emphatically, which would have been less sloppy if one of them hadn't been in the middle of taking a drink at the same time. "S'what if his eyes were leaking? That happens with monkeys. Happens wi' Trillian sometimes. Sometimes's good and sometimes's bad… never makes any sense to me, so probably doesn't mean anything."

"Well, that's you." Ford contemplated his own questionably mixed drink, took a big swig of it, and coughed. "I lived on tha' planet for years, y'know. I'mma human on experts…" He shoved his glass in Zaphod's general direction for another round, his expression wavering between drunkenly indignant and drunkenly wistful as he remembered the look on Arthur's damp face and sighed. "He di'n' want to. I could tell."

His semi-cousin sloshed him another drink – which, because he was not paying attention, was very like an individual snowflake in that it was entirely unique and could never again be duplicated – and gave him a look that clearly said, _Why not?_

Ford, because he didn't have an answer, ignored it in favor of showing his general disregard for the uniqueness of snowflakes.


	3. Part 3

**Warning:** Contains slash of the rather angsty variety

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur, Zaphod/Trillian

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words: **1107

Orange juice is a metaphor for everything. I don't even like the stuff and I believe this.

**

* * *

Part Three**

* * *

A while later, Trillian left Ford's cabin (she'd tried to convince Arthur to go somewhere else, like for a walk or something, to help clear his head, but he had refused on the grounds that outside of the room they might run into Ford himself) and was surprised to see Zaphod lounging casually against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway.

"Hey, kid, there you are!" He grinned winningly. "I was wondering where you'd gone off to."

"No you weren't," she said irritably. "You probably asked Eddie and knew exactly where I was, and talked to Ford and knew why. Otherwise you would have barged in looking for me."

"Aw, hey! Why's everyone in such a bad mood today? Seriously, not cool…"

"I have a headache," Trillian informed him. "From trying to get Arthur to stop being an idiot and just talk to…" She frowned. "Where's Ford?"

"Huh? Oh, he passed out again."

"Fantastic." She threw up her arms and marched off towards her own cabin, where she wouldn't be able to take a nice long bubble bath, since there was no bathtub, but could at least read a book or have a nap, and take a break from all this madness.

Zaphod's right head watched her go while the left one continued to eye the door she'd just come out of as if something distasteful would come out of it next – which, as far as he was concerned, was true.

After a moment – because, after all, priorities were priorities – he trailed after her, hoping for some action and as of yet blissfully unaware of the very sharp talking-to he was about to bring down on his heads.

* * *

Ford's first thought upon opening his eyes was that vertigo had a mottled mauve and orange color. This, of course, made no sense, so he rubbed a hand over his face and tried again.

His second thought was that he had mistaken vertigo for nausea and needed to find something to be sick in, soon. Which still didn't make any sense, but sense was no longer the most pressing concern.

Luckily, there was a bin nearby. He spotted it, lurched out of the chair – this time he'd fallen asleep half-sprawled over the table – and made it just in time.

"Awful, just awful," a dreary voice intoned nearby.

The fact that it was Marvin did a great deal to encourage Ford's stomach to lurch again. He coughed up the last of its contents, which were mostly liquid, into the bin as the clanging metallic footsteps grew closer.

"I suppose you think you've saved me the trouble of cleaning up after you," Marvin said, "but you haven't really. That bin didn't have any lining. Do you know how hard it is to wash out a bin covered in vomit, without actual hands?"

"Zark off," Ford rasped, lurching to his feet and pushing past the Paranoid Android to get to the Nutri-matic for something to wash the foul taste from his mouth. He wondered briefly, without really caring, where Zaphod had wandered off to and why he'd abandoned him to be alone in a room with the depressed robot.

Marvin turned his head to follow Ford's shaky progress. "There's no point in blaming me, you know. Not that I could stop you if you did. But if you organism-types experienced the aftereffects of drinking large quantities of alcohol first, and the intoxication last, I don't think any of you would drink at all. That's foresight for you."

Ford tried to ignore the droning speech assaulting one ear and the Nutri-matic's cheerfulness at being used besetting the other, and concentrated on the tall, cool glass of… orange juice.

He squinted at it. Why had he just ordered orange juice? Out of the quilliads of other beverages he had tasted in his life so far, it wasn't his favorite by any means. It didn't even have any alcohol in it, at least not on its own. What it was, however, was the drink Arthur had most commonly handed him the morning after a long night at the pub back on Earth.

"Not that you're even listening to me," Marvin was saying. "I suppose you're far more interested in staring at a glass of fruit juice. I don't blame you, really… Oh god, I'm so depressed…"

For some reason, Ford noticed as he sipped at the orange juice, thinking of Arthur made him vaguely uncomfortable. He couldn't remember why, though he _could_ remember out-drinking Zaphod. With a frown, he summarized that, since whatever motivation it had taken to achieve that must have been quite impressive, something Bad had happened.

Something bad, and something having to do with Arthur.

He frowned suddenly. The glass, still only half empty, missed the counter, where he had more or less intended to set it, and crashed to the floor.

Marvin looked at it in resigned dismay. "One more thing to add to a long list of menial chores. Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and the question I find myself needing to answer most often is whether to get a broom or a mop…"

"Never mind that, Marvin," Ford said hurriedly. "I don't remember… Arthur isn't missing or anything, is he?"

If Marvin could have blinked dejectedly, he would have. As it was, he decided to pause the same amount of time it would have taken to do so before replying unhelpfully (and with a trace of mockery). "Missing?"

"Yes! He wasn't… kidnapped or anything?" No, that didn't sound right. He tapped his foot impatiently, willing his brain to snap out of the fog it was in and give him a clue already, but the only thing he got for it was a tiny splash from the pool of orange juice soaking into his socks.

"How should _I_ know?" Marvin said. "It's not like anybody takes the time to tell me anything."

Ford swore under his breath. "Computer," he snapped.

Eddie's voice bubbled cheerfully out of hidden speakers. "Well hi there, fella—"

"Shut up!" Ford glared, for lack of any definite target, at the ceiling. "Where's Arthur?"

"Why sure, I can tell you that! In fact, he's still in your cabin!"

The fog was starting to shift, and he was a little uneasy about which way this was headed. "Still?"

"Yep! He's been in there since last night, and he must be having a ball because he hasn't left yet…"

As Ford sprinted down the hallway, Marvin turned to stare at the speaker hidden not all that cleverly over the top left corner of one of the cabinets. "Show off," he accused gloomily.


	4. Part 4

**Warning:** Contains slash of the rather angsty variety

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words: **877

This is not terribly related to anything, but I love the seventh fit of the radio series so much. So much. Especially Ford and Arthur being drunk. Ehehe, words cannot express my love for Simon Jones.

Meanwhile, orange juice continues to be a metaphor for everything.

* * *

**Part Four**

* * *

"All right, now it's very simple," Arthur muttered. He was speaking aloud for his own benefit, and for emphasis should any of the room's appliances misunderstand his actions. "I'm going to walk out of that door—" the door in question was giddy with anticipation "—go to my own cabin, wash these clothes, have a little lie-down on my own bed, and try to forget this ever happened. Then everything can go back to normal."

The fact that he had just used the phrase "back to normal" on a ship with an Infinite Improbability Drive should have alerted him to how unlikely it was that this plan would work.

But since it didn't, he had the dubious benefit of complete and total surprise when he stepped out into the hallway and was crashed into by a flustered and still slightly intoxicated Ford Prefect, who smelled strongly of spilt orange juice. Arthur hit the floor with a surprised "Ack!" that turned into something more of an "Ooof" as Ford landed on top of him.

"Oops," said Ford. "Uh, hello, Arthur."

Arthur gaped helplessly at him. Was it difficult to answer, he wondered, because he was too mortified to know how to reply or because Ford's unsupported weight was making it difficult for his lungs to expand?

"Get off," he wheezed finally, "you're crushing me."

"Huh? Oh." Ford rolled off to one side and sat with his back against the wall, watching the human apprehensively. His memories of the night before were coming back too muddy and too slowly for him to be sure, but he was fairly certain it wasn't a good sign that Arthur was avoiding looking at him.

For the moment, Arthur seemed to have resolved to avoid moving, as well. He was having a staring contest with the ceiling and his eyes were starting to sting for it. Distantly, he heard the door swing open with deplorable ecstasy.

_Well, that's that then_, he thought.

A hollow, numbing sort of relief trickled through him. He squeezed his eyes shut. No attempt to talk, no need to struggle to remember what Trillian had advised him to say, no…

"Arthur?"

He blinked. Ford was looking down at him without quite making eye-contact, the door only just sighing closed, and holding his bunched-up towel.

"Lift your head a bit, will you? Looking at you like that is making my headache worse."

Arthur gaped again, first at the makeshift pillow and then at the statement accompanying it. His addled brain, which had dared for a moment to hope that it wouldn't be needed anymore, was not quite able to process why these two sentences – one hesitant, the other casual – might seem so contradictory. A few seconds past the point where not reacting went from being awkward to borderline insulting, he shook himself and sat up.

Ford dropped his arm, and the towel fell limply by his side. "That works too," he said. "Look, Arthur—"

"I don't think I can do this," Arthur interrupted faintly. His brain was whirring from one thing to another – the press of lips on his, the sense of abandonment, that maybe Ford was going to apologize somehow, but when had he ever heard him do a thing like that? – and it was making everything very confusing.

He knew only that he couldn't let Ford finish that sentence. Whatever Ford had to say would be inversely proportional to whatever Arthur wanted to hear. Since Arthur had no idea what he wanted to hear, the possibilities were infinite. And, having been spun, unraveled, and then spun again through infinite possibilities a few times, he fully appreciated every single one of the reasons one might fear it, and then some.

"If you're going to tell me that… to not worry," Arthur babbled, picking himself up from the floor, "and that it's nothing… or even… I just, I really don't think I can do this, so… please…" He stood, shying away from the Betelgeusian, on the other side of the hallway, his hands clenching and unclenching and holding his dressing gown very tightly closed. "You… You can't just go around running into people and… offering them towels… It's not… dignified. It's just not dignified at _all_!"

With the exaggerated head movements of one still not entirely sober, Ford looked at Arthur, then at his towel, then at Arthur again. "What're you talking about?" he asked blankly. "I was helping."

"Helping?" Arthur repeated in a high-pitched voice. In an abstract way he was grateful for the excuse to latch his hysteria onto something more concrete. "Helping? How is blaming your hangover on me helping anyone?"

"Well," Ford replied slowly. He sounded as though he suspected this was, but couldn't quite work out _how_ it was, a trick question. "It makes _me_ feel a little better…"

He saw the look on Arthur's face and felt it prudent to backpedal.

"No, never mind, that's not the point. About last night, I don't really—"

"It _is_ the point, Ford," Arthur interrupted again. After all, he had to, no question. "I really can't… I have to go."

He turned and walked, without really being able to feel his knees, to his cabin, leaving Ford standing there with a towel and juice-soaked socks.


	5. Part 5

**Warning:** Contains slash of the rather angsty variety

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur, Zaphod/Trillian

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words: **2432

You guys, you guys, I might have an opportunity to, instead of taking a third class next semester, do an independant study project researching THE WRITING OF FANFICTION. For the love of Simon Jones, you guys, I could be doing this for CREDIT. How hot is that?!

(Answer: Not quite as hot as Simon Jones and David Dixon making the zark out, but almost. Mmmph.)

Ahem. Anyway. On with the blind, senseless confusion. XP

* * *

**Part Five**

* * *

What Trillian had told Ford was this:

"_Arthur is the kind of person who panics at anything new, no matter how many times you tell him not to. If he's upset with you, give him a while to finish panicking and get over it or you'll probably end up making it worse. _

"_So you shoved him into bed and kissed him. That's not so bad. He may even have liked it – who knows. Stranger things have happened. But he doesn't seem like the type who's ever been in that kind of situation before. It'd be more surprising if he_ hadn't _panicked. And I don't know if you noticed, but homophobia was kind of a problem on Earth. Two men kissing wasn't considered… How can I put this… It wasn't_ proper _in a lot of circles. Arthur may be conditioned to be uncomfortable with the whole idea. He may just be confused. I don't know, so you're going to have to ask him._

"_You heard that, right? It's very important that you talk to him about this. Sex isn't a casual thing for some people. I don't know if it is for your entire species or if that's just a personality quirk you and Zaphod both happen to have, but for humans it depends on the individual. If Arthur doesn't take this incident lightly, you have to understand that."_

Unfortunately, all Ford could remember of this speech was, "Arthur is the kind of person who," "So you shoved him into bed and kissed him," and "You heard that, right?"

He distinctly remembered nodding at each of those three things, and that was all.

The kiss… He did remember that part.

Ford instructed the door to lock (specifying from the _inside_, because that was a mistake one only ever made once) and circled the room, eyeing the bed speculatively. His missing articles of clothing lay scattered haphazardly on the floor; he picked them up and draped them in seemingly nonsensical places on the walls – a shoe hanging from the light switch, the pinstripe jacket tossed up to the highest empty shelf. He took off his wet socks and threw them absently at opposite corners of the ceiling, where, miraculously, they stuck.

If he concentrated, he could _feel_ Arthur's lips yielding quickly under his, opening sweetly with a stifled moan. Scrambling to open the dressing gown and get clothes out of the way. Touching him, feeling hot skin underneath his fingertips, damp and aching. The certainty that Arthur wanted him to had been, for some reason, the most powerful zarking aphrodisiac Ford had ever experienced, and it had come with a fierce sense of pride that he could draw that kind of reaction out of the normally buttoned-down ape-descendant.

And then the taste of salt where it shouldn't have been. It would have been really great if it hadn't been for that. Put an awful damper on the whole thing.

Ford frowned and sprawled across the bed, pondering the wrinkled sheets as if they might have some insight into the twisted workings of a particular human brain. (As it was, though, they only had one rather disgusting patch where a particular human hand had been wiped.) Arthur had clearly been enjoying what they were doing, but those had not been good tears. So what _had_ they been? Was this another form of sarcasm he simply wasn't familiar with? Maybe it was, and Arthur had run out of patience to explain that he shouldn't have taken it literally. That would explain why there was something Arthur couldn't do, and why a trick question was apparently the point…

No, that couldn't be it. Ford had once read somewhere that dolphins were the point,***** but that was even less helpful. Maybe this wasn't the kind of thinking to be doing while almost-but-not-quite-sober…

"'S stupid," he muttered. "How am I supposed to know if he won't zarking talk to me?"

Why did it suddenly matter so much, anyway? It was such a small thing… just one kiss. He'd never had _sex_ that had ended up feeling so complicated.

And he didn't have a clue why, which was just not hoopy. Not hoopy at all.

_

* * *

_**[*Good Omens! "The point is… the point is… the point is… is dolphins. Dolphins is my point." Also a drunken conversation. I can no longer that the point actually was.]**

* * *

What Trillian had told Arthur was this:

"_It sounds like you've been thinking about Ford a lot, without actually thinking about why. At this point, you need to do that, soon – I don't know what else I can tell you._

"_Obviously he's attracted enough to make a move on you. Granted, he was drunk at the time, and he left without following through, so to speak… but I think your bursting into tears shook him more than he's willing to admit. That's got to mean _something_… But never mind what for the moment. The first thing you've got to do is decide whether or not you really are attracted to him. _

"_If you aren't, tell him not to do it again. Be blunt and try not to ramble too much. If you are, tell him you are and go from there. But this is obviously something that's bothering you, and has been for some time, so even if you can't figure out whether you like him that way or not you _have_ to talk to him about it. Get it off your chest._

"_And it has to be _you_. Don't think I'm going to do it for you out of solidarity for the last of the human race, because I was serious when I said I'm not passing notes. This is the last time I'm getting involved."_

Arthur had taken a quick shower and then settled in to wait for his clothes to finish washing. For the price of a mere five quilliad Altarian dollars the manufacturer could certainly afford to install individual washer/dryers in each (well, most) of the sleeping cabins, so, given that the ship was fully automated, one might never have to go far from one's bed to do much of anything. This meant that, while Arthur might have preferred to do something more active than just waiting, there wasn't really much else to do that wasn't elsewhere or already being done for him.

While he waited, he wrapped himself in his towel and huddled miserably on the end of his bed. It was very cold without his dressing gown, which either had something to do with the cold vacuum of space or with the small comfort the scratchy, well-worn thing managed to bring him when he wore it. But it would be a while yet before he could put it on again, so he turned his attention reluctantly to the matter of What To Do About Ford.

Trillian was right about one thing, at least; he had never given much thought to what he might _want_ from Ford's attention, just that he felt good whenever he managed to attract it. That was hard enough with the Universe at large and Zaphod (whose ego was almost certainly larger) strutting around, offering all sorts of adventure, excitement, and really wild things. There simply hadn't been time, what with worrying over the one (as well as all the troublesome near death experiences that adventure, excitement, and really wild things seemed so often to lead to), to even begin to consider the other.

But now… Now he'd had a taste of the possibilities, and, on a purely physical level, it had been wonderful. Simple, without need to question. So yes, Arthur admitted, he was attracted to Ford. This was unexplored territory, but lusting after a man, even an alien one, didn't feel all that different or more vulgar than lusting after a woman. In any case, not knowing quite what he was getting into had become such a familiar occurrence that he was only slightly troubled by it.

What bothered him was that Ford didn't seem to care at all.

Didn't he?

"_You _watch_ me,"_ he'd said. So he had noticed that, at least.

"_There's lots you don't get," _he'd said. What the hell did that mean? Arthur wouldn't have been surprised if it was another criticism of his narrow, human ways of thinking.

But there had been something urgent in the way Ford had touched him, something strong and possessive. Arthur shivered remembering it – that kiss had stolen his breath away, and if what had happened next hadn't, he probably would have forgotten all his qualms and let Ford continue to spin him about between need and fulfillment. That thought made Arthur pause, but after a moment's consideration he decided it was perfectly true. Except, of course, that hadn't happened.

Why had Ford left? Just because of a few tears? That didn't seem like Ford. This was the man whose response to Arthur's distress at the destruction of Earth had been a shrug and a light, "Oh well," and then had gone on to call it a disintegrated pile of rubble. The same man who hadn't given a damn about Arthur's house being knocked down, despite years of knocking drunkenly on its door looking for a place to sleep until the pubs opened again regardless of whether Arthur was finally drifting off to sleep himself or needed to be somewhere early in the morning. Protests, entreaties, and the occasional bribery had proved ineffective in getting him to go away in the past – and all of the sudden Trillian was saying he was worried that Arthur hated him.

Well, maybe that made sense, because Ford never seemed to partake in much beyond one night stands or other careless liaisons that maybe he didn't know what to do when he stumbled upon something that obviously wouldn't work that way. The kind of people Ford had always seemed to get on best with – Arthur, of course, being an exception – were the very casual sort, seen and indulged in every once in a while, but not thought of much before they showed up or after they left again. (Zaphod came to mind as an example of this, but on this matter Arthur was able to put his foot down and firmly not think about it. _Surely_ not. After all, they were cousins. Right? Right. Of course. Absolutely. End of the thought process.)

Arthur was not a casual sort of person about many things, and certainly not about sex. He never had been and never would be, and to some extent Ford seemed to understand that.

And Ford had done and said any number of offensive and/or insulting things over the years, usually also when very drunk… But hate him? Really, permanently hate him? It didn't seem possible – or fair, since Arthur was fairly certain that, objectively, it had been a very pleasurable experience – and, again, didn't sound like Ford.

So maybe… just maybe… Ford was overreacting too. (That Arthur was overreacting was something he'd come to terms with quite easily, as it was a fairly common reoccurring symptom of being more or less adrift in a very big Universe.) Which meant that maybe Ford thought there was something to overreact _about_. Which meant that maybe he felt bad about making him cry. And maybe he felt bad about ignoring his protests and getting most of the way into his pants. And maybe… maybe he cared.

After all, if it hadn't been for Ford he would have been killed along with everyone else on Earth.

"Right," Arthur declared. "All I have to do now is find him and tell him that I don't hate him and… and… that I like him as more than a friend. Right. I can do that."

The washer/dryer chimed to signal the end of its wash cycle, and happily whirred on to spin cycle.

He sighed and amended, "As soon as my clothes are dry, I can do that.

"… I think."

* * *

What Trillian had told Zaphod was this:

"_No, I don't feel like it right now."_

Well, she'd said a lot more than that, but that was the part that had caught and held most of his attention.

He was Zaphod Beeblebrox. The best bang since the big one. One of _the_ proverbial Its, second only to the End of the Universe. And she _didn't feel like_ having sex with him?

That just wasn't right.

Another thing that wasn't right, he discovered when he stalked up to the bridge and began flipping through the sub-ether channels, was that he wasn't in any of the news broadcasts. This meant, of course, that there was nothing worth watching.

He switched to the ship's surveillance system, hoping at least to catch a peak at something interesting – only to find that Ford had managed to locate and obscure every single camera in his cabin. _Belgium._ What was the use of not having any morals or impulse control and a similarly blessed, adequately experienced and adventurous, and usually equally sloshed (if slightly related, but who in the enlightened galaxy really gave a flying photon about that sort of thing anymore) acquaintance on board, when said acquaintance didn't feel like helping a frood out in the slightest?

Scowling now, he looked in on Arthur's cabin and watched the evolutionary mishap pace up and down alongside the bed in a towel.

Why Ford had brought _that_ along with him baffled Zaphod. Arthur, not the towel – Zaphod was quite aware of his semi-cousin's insistence on (if not nearly all of his reasons for) always having a towel handy, and had been a victim to Ford's towel on quite a number of occasions.

On Earth, as he understood it, the human had been the perfect mark; provider of a place to crash, lender of local currency when funds were running low, and all-around nursemaid in the aftermath of particularly wild parties. That made perfect sense. But it was another thing entirely to bring him along at the precise moment his usefulness in those categories was reduced to nil – not least because, in Zaphod's opinion, Arthur took his nursemaid duties _far_ too seriously and _far_ too early into a bottle. The monkey-man must have… tricked Ford, or hypnotized him, or something (which was giving Arthur more credit than Zaphod usually liked to, but with the pacifying assumption that the Earthman could only have done it by accident rather than design). Further proof of this was, who gave a zark whether he wanted to be kissed or not? A little bit of leaking shouldn't have fazed Ford at all.

But it had, and the whole business was spoiling Zaphod's day. So, in a spirit of self-preservation and (he could claim later) an unprecedented surge of generosity, he decided to do something about it.

* * *

_Sorry about the note midstory. I just couldn't resist the reference... I haven't even _read _Good Omens all the way through, what is wrong with me._ XD


	6. Part 6

**Warning:** Contains slash of the rather angsty variety

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur, Zaphod/Ford

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words: **1844

**

* * *

Part Six**

* * *

It was some time before Ford left his cabin again, and when he did so he was fully dressed (excluding socks) and looking for… well, nothing in particular.

He wouldn't have minded finding something to make his hangover go away, he had no great objection to happening upon more alcohol, and he admitted only to slight trepidation at the thought of running into Arthur again. Any of these, he reasoned, were likely to happen sooner or later, regardless of what order he tried to seek them in, so in the meantime he might as well just wander around aimlessly until one or more of them did all on their own.

So he didn't pay attention to where he was wandering for two reasons: first, because, already indicated, he had worked out that paying attention would probably have very little effect on whatever might decide to happen, and, second, because he was distracted by one thought that his brain kept turning over, re-examining, and generally not knowing quite what to do with. What was almost, but not quite, the most disconcerting aspect of this was that, in spite of all the confusion and awkwardness, he definitely wanted to kiss Arthur again, and then go on to do other very pleasant things to him. Feel the human squirm and moan again… Oh yes, that was a very nice idea indeed.

Ford wandered distractedly onto the bridge, where he stumbled upon the last few minutes of what was apparently a business call:

"Excellent, baby. So, five million Altarian dollars in my account, right?"

He decided to leave off wandering for the moment and began eavesdropping, conveniently hidden by the bulk of a particularly exciting shape that seemed to serve no purpose other than making it easier to drop eaves. From there, he could peer around and see Zaphod swiveling idly a little to the left, then a little to the right, then over again in one of the control chairs, and slightly less idly addressing a large, scaly face on the screen.

"Agreed. Ooh, and does it have a tail? A prehensile one would be lovely…"

Ford frowned thoughtfully. He wasn't sure he liked where he thought this might be heading.

Zaphod considered for a moment, then grinned. "I can't say for sure, but it does have something wrapped around its waist all the time. If that's not a tail, I don't know what else could be."

Ford tightened his lips to keep something rude from falling out.

"Oh good," enthused the reptilian creature, showing an awfully unnecessary amount of teeth, even by Ford's standards. "I've always wanted a pet with a prehensile tail."

Ford stepped out from behind his hiding place, trying to look nonchalant (which he wasn't, particularly) rather than irritated (which definitely he was) or upset (which he was worried he might be). "Zaphod, could I have a word?"

Zaphod jumped a little in his seat. "You have the coordinates, right baby? Great, catch you later."

He cut the call, spun the chair around, and flashed Ford twin thousand-watt grins.

"Hey, Ford, sure. Which word would you like? I've got billions, kid."

"What."

"What?"

"Yes. What," Ford elaborated calmly, "is going on? Are you trying to _sell_ Arthur?"

Zaphod continued to grin. "Yep."

Ford considered this, and for a moment his thoughts found a refreshing new angle on that one slightly bewildering thing they'd been stuck on for a while now.

"Well… you can't," he said, lamely.

The grins flickered briefly before being eclipsed with a mildly wounded look, which seemed to say, _I can't believe you don't think this is the best idea since… well, since me. _It was a look that Zaphod had a special knack for achieving.

"Why not?"

This was a tricky question, mostly because Ford wasn't sure how to answer it.

Many options flashed through his mind, and most of them – while all were probably, on some level or another, true – he rejected on the basis of the facts that this was Zaphod he was talking to and Zaphod's peculiar reasoning he was up against, and in order to navigate both these things he was going to have to come up with something equally peculiar and yet still convincing at the same time. Convincing, of course, being a relative quality.

Luckily, Zaphod was a relative of his and he had a pretty good idea of what his semi-cousin would deem mentally palatable.

"Well." Ford took a seat in one of the control chairs and, out of habit, propped his feet up on the console. It had taken some practice to be able to do this without accidentally pressing any important buttons and still managing to look cool at the same time. "Theft," he said, as if he was merely casually referencing some great universal truth, "is ownership. Right?"

"Right," Zaphod agreed readily.

"So, I stole Arthur from the planet Earth."

Zaphod looked as if he was having trouble swallowing this.

"If the Earth was a giant supercomputer, which it was," Ford went on to reason, "and humans were part of its operational matrix, which they were – then I stole a piece of the computer when I left, right before it blew up. As a souvenir, if you like."

"I thought you didn't like it there very much."

"Well, no," he admitted. "But a guy's got to have something to show for time spent, right? Anyway, I stole him, so he's mine. You can't just go behind my back and sell him. If anyone's going to do that, it'll be me."

"And are you going to?"

"No, probably not."

"Exactly," Zaphod declared, suddenly serious. "Look, Ford, I'm trying to do you a favor here. Hanging around with that monkey for so long's given you some pretty unhoopy attitudes, you know? You're not as much fun as you used to be."

Ford frowned. "No it hasn't," he said stubbornly.

The thing that was occupying most of his mind popped briefly back into his conscious thoughts to blow him a raspberry, and he mentally shoved it away. Then it occurred to him that Zaphod might be right. That was another rather unsettling thought which he also mentally shoved away, but in this instance he didn't have quite so much leverage. After all, he _was_ being driven to distraction by a mere kiss – albeit a rather involved one – with a particular human. The same human who, at the moment, didn't seem to want to talk to him anymore.

"Yeah?" Zaphod challenged.

"Yeah."

"All right then." He picked up a bottle of Janx Spirit from the floor with his third arm and set it on the console. "One game and I'll call back to say the sale's off."

On one hand, it probably wasn't a very good idea to disagree with this plan. Ford knew that if he did, Zaphod would probably be mercilessly annoying about it. Bad enough that he'd witnessed him moping earlier…

On the other hand, it probably wasn't all that great an idea to agree, either, because alcohol had that marvelous and occasionally troublesome effect of loosening one's tongue a bit more than was strictly comfortable, or causing potentially embarrassing things to happen.

"All right then," Ford echoed. "You're on."

Because, on the _other_ other hand, there was still that one thing lurking in Ford's brain that he wasn't quite sure what to do with. It was, put very simply, this: if Arthur hated him or suddenly wasn't around anymore for whatever reason, Ford would be terribly upset about it.

* * *

Clad once more in his ever-present pajamas and dressing gown, Arthur walked up to the door, was wished a pleasant day as it opened, and was hit by a ton of second thoughts that he almost mistook for bricks as he stepped out into the hallway.

He started walking. His slippers, he noticed were starting to show quite a bit of wear, and it might be a good idea to buy a new pair soon. The floor sped past at alarming speed, so he slowed down to avoid making himself dizzy.

_Perhaps I could write a letter instead_, he thought. _I'm good at writing letters. Something… something simple. Something easier_.

No. All he knew for sure was that he should find Ford. Then, even if he couldn't figure out what to say, perhaps being willing to stand there and make a fool of himself would at least count for something – dissipate some of the awkwardness, maybe. Arthur didn't dare imagine what else he could possibly expect.

There was no simple, there was no easier. He knew that. His only options were deal with it, or deal with it poorly.

He went to the galley first and looked in, but no one was there. The room smelled freshly cleaned, and that was all.

"You're not intending to make another mess in there, are you?" Marvin asked suddenly from behind him. Arthur jumped and spun around, miraculously not falling over; Marvin refused to be impressed. "Because I just finished putting away the mop and the broom, but since people are probably going to be in and out of here all day then I suppose I might as well get them back out again…"

"Don't sneak up on me like that," Arthur snapped.

"I didn't. I was standing here the whole time and you just didn't notice." Marvin gave a mechanical sigh. "Not that any of you ever do. Not even when I have this shooting pain in all the diodes down my—"

Arthur groaned. "Never mind your left side. Listen, I'm just trying to find Ford. Do you know where he is?"

"Why does everyone expect me to know these things? It's not like anybody takes the time to tell me anything, _still_."

"But do you—"

"I suppose you think I should feel flattered that you'd want to ask me more than you'd want to ask the ship's computer, but I don't."

"Do you know where—"

"And even if I could, why should I? I can solve every single mathematical problem written in any given super-advanced level textbook in two minutes, but you'd rather ask me questions I don't have the sensors for and can only calculate the likelihood of."

Arthur realized that he was grinding his teeth, and forced himself to stop. "All right, then," he said. "Do you know where Ford is _likely _to be?"

Marvin paused. This, too, was a calculated pause, because he had already plotted out his answer about two seconds into the conversation, which he, on principle as well as specifically, was not enjoying.

"In an alcoholic stupor, I expect," the manically-depressed robot answered finally.

"Arg, you— Never mind!"

Arthur stomped off. He could think of a few other places to look. Most of them, though, were in the direction of Ford's cabin… He decided to try somewhere else first.

The first thing he noticed, as he approached the door to the bridge, was the muffled noise of people. That at least sounded more promising than a conversation with an electronic sulking machine.

* * *

_It seems only fitting that I should post this part now, as last night was the worst night ever. Zarking sinus headache. The guilt for this cliffhanger rolls off me like water off a duck that has lost its Simon Jones.  
_


	7. Part 7

**Warning:** Contains slash of the rather angsty variety

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur, references to Zaphod/Ford

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words:** 2946

You guys, I've written a proposal for an independent study project on fanfiction. And I still can't spell "independent" right on the first try, because my spelling brain is broken, but all I have to do is find a writing teacher who'll agree to sponsor this and everything will be awesome! I would be able to write more stuff to post, _for credit_. For the win.

In other news, this is _all one scene_. Jeez.

**

* * *

Part Seven**

* * *

Arthur bolted back into the hallway, nearly skidded into the far wall, steadied himself against it briefly and took off again.

A few seconds later Ford stumbled out, struggling to do up his trousers. "I'm going t'get more bottles," he called over his shoulder. "For drinking."

This was a lie, but Zaphod had got the forfeit he'd wanted and Ford figured that after a few minutes with the last bottle of Janx he wouldn't remember or care where he had said he was going. Ford managed to retain his composure until the door closed, then broke into a wobbly run.

"Arthur!"

Ford turned a corner just in time to see a flash of dressing gown disappear around the next. It was another one of the perpetually and obnoxiously eager to please doors that gave the human away though, and when Ford reached it he noted with a touch of thanks that Arthur had ducked into the galley. The Nutri-matic machine there could be counted on to provide a vile but useful sobering-up mixture, which was a terrible way to end a good bender but in this case probably necessary to salvage… whatever it was that was going on.

He knew only vaguely about relationships, as if it was some semi-recalled but foreign idea once read about in a magazine while waiting at the doctor's office. This was mostly because he traveled around a lot, and since settling down was never quite in the cards a lot of people ended up drifting into the background of his memories. 'Relationship', therefore, didn't tend to be a very good description of his usually blissfully uncomplicated liaisons.

_Belgium,_ he thought. _This isn't one of those, is it? How the photon did that happen?_

He wobbled as he waited for the door to open, then darted in and slowed to a stop. Arthur was on the opposite side of the room, kicking the other door in frustration.

"Just open, you sodding thing!"

"Thank you for showing such an interest in this humble passageway, sir," the door replied in soothing tones, "but the floor on the other side is currently being preemptively mopped and is therefore quite wet and slippery. Perhaps you wouldn't mind making different simple door very happy for the time being?"

"Yes I _would_ mind," Arthur moaned, sounding near tears. Then he realized that he wasn't alone, did an abrupt about face that made the skirts of his dressing gown swish around his legs, and plastered himself against the wall as if he thought he could blend in with it and hide. His face, in keeping with this apparent plan, went from burning red to white as a sheet.

Ford opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. He frowned, then held up a hand. "Hold on, I need…"

It didn't seem quite worth the effort to finish that sentence, so he let it hang awkwardly between them and shuffled over to the Nutri-matic.

"Share and enjoy."

He frowned at another glass of orange juice, set it on the counter, and tried again.

"Share and enjoy."

He sniffed cautiously, then grimaced. "Thassa stuff," he muttered, and drank it as quickly as possible. His ears popped a few times as all the alcohol in his system was neutralized, and he made a face very much like the one Arthur had made the first time he'd felt a Babel fish worm its way down his aural tract. He threw the cup away with a shudder and reached for the orange juice again.

Arthur, meanwhile, only stared at him twitchily.

Ford swished the orange juice around in his mouth, swallowed, and felt a little more prepared to deal with the situation.

"I just want to say," he began, "that what you just saw—" He paused with a wince, because the hangover he'd earned was hitting him in fast-forward.

"What I just saw?" Arthur repeated faintly in the ensuing silence. "You… you were… with _Zaphod_, I saw…"

"Yes, I know," Ford cut back in quickly. "But it was just a game. Nothing worth getting upset over."

The problem, as Ford saw it, was this: Arthur was obviously upset, but he, Ford, didn't know why. He had spent enough time on Earth to know that humans were rather uptight about degrees of relation and who shouldn't be allowed to be shagging who – rules which, when not observed, he would have expected Arthur to respond to with a very English 'Oh, now really,' and possibly disdain, but not _this_.

So obviously something else was at work as well. But what?

_Maybe_, thought Ford, _he's embarrassed about what happened earlier. Maybe he didn't mean to kiss back and the crying part was because of that but sort of an accident._

That didn't quite seem to fit, though. No one, in his experience, responded to physical contact the way Arthur had completely by accident. Even sexually frustrated, it took longer than that to get up without tapping into some sort of desire that was already there.

_Maybe,_ Ford thought slowly, _maybe he meant to kiss back, and the crying was really sort of a big accident. _

The problem, as Arthur saw it, was this: he was desperately upset, deeply miserable, and utterly at a loss as to what to do next. That was it. He couldn't seem to get past his own roiling emotions to think about much of anything. So he did the next best thing.

He opened his mouth and let words fall out.

"I'm not upset. Why would I be upset? It doesn't make any difference to me who you have indecent relations with in public places, even if you have them on the bridge with a _relative_ in a display of complete and utter tactlessness…"

"I may not be able to tell you why you would or wouldn't be," replied Ford, "but you definitely sound like it makes _some_ kind of difference." Even as he spoke these words, his mind whirred over their possible implications. If he was right, and Arthur did have some repressed reason for at least partially accepting his drunken advance the night before, then maybe Arthur was… jealous? This at least was a state of mind he could readily make sense of.

Blinking, Arthur bit his lip and made some attempt at separating himself from the wall. "All right," he said, "so maybe I am a little upset. I don't see why that's any of your business."

Ford saw what he was doing and stepped a bit closer, trying to prevent the Earthman from leaving. The key to getting all this irritating awkwardness to go away, he felt, was to force Arthur to un-repress whatever it was he'd been repressing before it caused him to explode – an ailment not unheard of in some species, and, although he knew enough about humans to be secure in the knowledge that Arthur's dressing gown cord was not some kind of detachable tail, he wasn't entirely certain that this wasn't applicable.

"Listen," Ford tried, "you didn't let me say much last time we talked, which is just as well because at the time I couldn't really remember much of what happened and was just trying to tell you that. But about last night… I wouldn't have tried anything if I hadn't thought at the time that you were interested. I'm usually pretty good at telling when people are having a good time, and up until the crying part I thought you were, you know?"

Arthur boggled at him; his brain and mouth were apparently both completely stalled.

"And anyway," he added, "you did kiss back."

"Can't we just forget about that," Arthur asked in a tiny voice, "and never speak of it again?"

Ford shrugged nonchalantly. "Maybe I could, if I wanted to," he said (because he figured that quickest would be best… or at least get it over with sooner). "But, everything else aside, it was a pretty good kiss. I ought to know – I'm probably the third best kisser in the Galaxy by now."

"Um… Who are the first two?"

His eyes flicked to Arthur's, trying to measure how much farther he would have to push. It didn't seem like it would take much.

"Zaphod," he admitted, sounding faintly annoyed in spite of himself. "And he never lets me forget it, either."

That did it.

"Zaphod?" Arthur repeated. "_Zaphod_?" He seemed to forget about the wall completely and drew himself up to his full height, which, Ford had to admit, was fairly impressive. It was sometimes easy to forget how tall the human really was due to the resigned slump he had developed since his planet's destruction.

On second thought, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to push him.

"Now Arthur," Ford said uneasily, "calm down… Don't—"

"Don't tell me not to panic," Arthur snapped. "Don't tell me not to panic or to stop whining or to shut up every time I get even a little upset!"

He stalked forward as he said this, shrinking the distance between them until he was close enough to jab Ford accusingly on the chest, and did so with gusto.

"Don't drink until you can't see straight and then chase indiscriminately after anything that might offer you sex," he continued, growing louder with every word. "Don't treat me like I'm an idiot half the time. Don't wear clothes that clash so much that people can't _help_ but look at you whenever you enter a room, and don't leave your shirt untucked with the tails hanging out below your sweater, and don't get so annoyed when I notice and tell you to tuck them in. And _don't_ make me lose my breath! I really can't stand that…" His voice broke.

"Arthur—" Ford tried, but the human clapped a hand over his mouth, swallowed hard, and kept going.

"I mean it, Ford. Because it isn't fair. All right – so life isn't fair, the Universe isn't fair, but you could damn well give it a try after everything you've put me through!"

"Mmmtt mmm mmphm?" Ford asked.

"I, for one," continued Arthur, "was raised to believe that if two people are going to kiss, or do anything else for that matter – not two men, I wasn't raised to believe that, exactly, but who the hell is around to care about that now anyway – then it should mean something. But since it's all 'just a game' to you, I don't see how it could. So when you… _use_ me the way you did last night, it's very hard for me to know what to do about it, or what to think, because I think that I might be able to really get used to it, otherwise. But if you can go and… and be sprawled wantonly on the deck of the bridge, under _Zaphod_ of all people – a man who has taken every opportunity to insult me, my species, and my late planet for his own fickle amusement – less than twelve hours after very nearly putting me in a similar position, I don't think I can… I'm only capable of stretching my horizons so far, and this is already much farther than I'm prepared to go."

Ford stared at him, turning these (surprisingly levelly delivered) sentences over in his brain.

"And, what's more," Arthur went on, "you _saw_ me standing there, and didn't react at all. Nothing. You just kept letting him go at it without any consideration for my feelings at all. With me, you didn't even feel the need to stay… I suppose I can see why whatever you and Zaphod were doing would fall under the fun and games category, but if you treat me with even _less_ consideration then the implications are quite clear."

_Ah_, Ford would have said, _now the difference there is…_ But Arthur's hand was in the way.

"But I understand. After all, I'm so ill-informed about this Universe that I might as well be as stupid and boring as you all seem to think I am anyway. From what I've seen so far, though, I don't _want_ to be better informed. So, if you'd just be so kind as to drop me off at the nearest Earth-like planet—"

Ford reached up and yanked Arthur's hand away from his mouth. "Absolutely not! I didn't just loose a drinking game to keep you from being turned off this ship just to have you tell me you're going to leave anyway."

Arthur blinked, thrown off his stride – not least because Ford was now holding his hand. "You… What?"

"The difference between you and Zaphod," Ford explained, "is that, technicalities of theft aside, this is his ship. If he's convinced he doesn't want you on his ship, I'm the one who has to un-convince him, you see? So what I have to do, in order to keep him from being bloody annoying, is to play by his rules sometimes. With you, well…" He sighed. "Do _you_ even know what your rules are, Arthur?"

"That's… no excuse… And what do you mean, my rules? I don't have rules."

Ford grinned humorlessly. "Don't be stupid. Everyone has rules. You just gave me a list of don'ts, didn't you?"

"Well—"

"And you," pressed Ford with aggressive certainty, "_like_ me. Which is why the list was so long. Now that I'm aware of that, I can make certain… allowances."

"Allowances?"

Ford shrugged. "Yeah, if you think it's important, which you seem to. What do you want, Arthur," he asked with a more genuine grin, "that will make you not angry at me anymore?"

Arthur seemed to struggle with the question. Oddly enough, Ford found the perplexed expression on his face reassuring, even endearing. _My monkey_, he thought fondly, and didn't bother wondering where that had come from.

After all, as an extremely hoopy guy he prided himself in going with the flow as much as possible.

"It's… it's not a question of making it up to me," Arthur said finally. "I mean, I appreciate the… the gesture, but… Could you please stop that?"

Ford's grin widened, without any trace of sheepishness. His thumb continued to move in lazy circles on Arthur's wrist, his fingers curving to fit more closely against the back of the Earthman's hand.

"I don't see why it should _just_ be making it up to you."

The way he said that – sort of a cross between a purr and a condensed leer – made the hair at the back of Arthur's neck stand on end. But not, Arthur admitted shakily to himself, in a particularly off-putting way. He was quite aware that Ford could be terribly persuasive when he wanted to be, and wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. The tables seemed to have turned back to their usual arrangement; Ford was on firm footing while he was wobbling around in a mucky swamp of uncertainty.

Ford tugged on his wrist and he stumbled forward a little, until they were almost touching.

"To be perfectly honest," Ford confided in a low voice, looking up at him with captivatingly blue eyes, "I've been thinking about you all day. Which is a bit more than just saying I want to fuck you – that would certainly be nice, but I would also like to kiss you, and touch you, and explore you, more than just once. So, I suppose it would not be at all unreasonable to say… I like you too, Arthur Dent." He rested his free hand lightly on Arthur's shoulder. "All right?"

It took Arthur a moment to realize that Ford expected an answer. His mouth worked silently as he carded through a myriad of reactions, trying to find a suitable one to voice. There was _If you think I'm going to fall for that, think again_; there was _Do you _have_ to be so vulgar?_; there was even _Do you really mean that, because I really think I could believe you_…

Instead, he whispered, "Your shirt's untucked." Because it was.

Ford leaned forward. "I know," he whispered back.

Arthur could feel breath on his mouth; it smelled like breakfast time in the spring. "Is this a good idea?" he whispered, half to Ford and half thinking out loud.

It felt dangerous, the way his heart was pounding so hard. Ford's hand slid up to cup the side of his face and he pressed into the touch, shaking with uncertainty and desire and complete, utter panic.

"I think so," Ford replied, and for a split second Arthur might have sworn he was nervous too. Then Ford was kissing him. Again.

This time the kiss was gentle. It was not a flurry of mouth-parts striking and dancing like lightning but a slow and sensuous introduction. It was lingering. It tasted like orange juice.

Which was odd, because Arthur had always been under the impression that Ford didn't like orange juice, merely tolerated it.

When Ford pulled back Arthur tried to follow him, then opened his eyes – when had he closed them? – and tried to speak but couldn't find any words.

"Okay?" Ford asked.

The reality of it was just beginning to seep into Arthur's struggling brain. He heard _I like you too_, felt fingers ghosting along his neck to settle on his cheek and temple, tasted citrus and an underlying alien flavor that could only belong to Ford – all of it, everything, all at once. He was also aware that Ford was completely sober. Voluntarily. For him.

"O…kay?" Arthur responded unsteadily.

Ford rubbed his thumb reassuringly back and forth across his cheek, just brushing the corner of his mouth. "Okay," he confirmed, sounding much more confident.


	8. Part 8

**Pairing:** Ford/Arthur, Zaphod/Trillian

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, unfortunately.

**Words:** 2605

**

* * *

Part Eight**

* * *

Ford led Arthur by the hand down an unfamiliar hallway at a brisk pace. He glanced speculatively at each of the doors they passed, but didn't seem to find one that suited him and kept going.

"Ford," Arthur asked for the umpteenth time, "where are we going?"

He sighed and decided to give a real answer this time, if only so he didn't have to keep hearing the question. "You said you didn't want to stay in the galley, right?"

"Right…" What Arthur had actually said was that he wasn't terribly comfortable doing much more than kissing in a more or less public place, but this was close enough.

"And you didn't want to go back to my cabin."

"Yes…"

"And you weren't sure about going to yours, either."

"Er," Arthur said, sounding like he was about to apologize for that again.

"So, we are going," Ford concluded, "somewhere else."

"But, these aren't sleeping quarters…"

"No," he agreed. "These are store rooms. Ah, here we are."

He pulled Arthur into the sensor field of a door that, upon closer inspection, looked exactly like all the others. It swung open with an incredibly puzzling, "Please enjoy your selection process."

Or at least it was incredibly puzzling, until Arthur realized that the large-ish room Ford was ushering him into was full of mattresses. Then it became merely somewhat puzzling.

Plain mattresses, striped mattresses, floral-printed mattresses, some large, some small, and some just a hair larger than medium. They were everywhere, piled up in tall, uneven stacks. Many of the stacks loomed all the way up to the dimly illuminated ceiling. For whatever reason, the store room had clearly been stocked with an eye towards providing the maximum possible number of crew members with a lifetime supply of soft yet firm springy comfort, each.

Directly in front of them was a narrow opening, a kind of pathway through the mattressy towers, and Ford was already starting to squeeze his way through it.

"Um, Ford…?"

"I want to show you a place I found," he called back. "Back while Zaphod was still trying to figure out the coordinates to get us to Magrathea, I got bored and decided to explore the ship. I would have asked you if you wanted to come, but when I went to your cabin you were asleep. I didn't think I should wake you."

"How considerate," Arthur muttered.

"What?"

"Er, nothing." He stared uncertainly into the dark fissure.

Ford stared back, two bright pinpricks of blue glinting in the darkness. "Are you coming?"

_I really want him to_, Ford admitted to himself as the Earthman hesitated. He knew instinctively that if Arthur backed out now, a window of opportunity would be shut, locked, and barred from the inside, possibly forever. With a sigh, he crawled back out and took Arthur's hand again.

"It's all right," he coaxed, "it's just somewhere private. A place to go where we won't be interrupted. And it's very comfortable, too. I promise."

_And he seems to want to as well_, he thought as he saw Arthur wavering. _So… it couldn't hurt, right?_ Without breaking eye contact, he reached into his satchel and found the flask he kept wrapped up in his towel. He unscrewed the cap expertly without looking and offered it to Arthur.

"To settle your nerves," he explained. At Arthur's slightly suspicious look, he added, "I'm not trying to get you drunk, honestly. Just… at some point, you're going to have to relax."

"You don't think I can relax?" Arthur shot back.

"I think you have a definite predilection for talking yourself out of doing so. You try to think too much. Don't think. Just go with it." Ford took another step closer and pressed the opening of the flask to the human's bottom lip. "Come on. It's a little strong by your standards, so just a sip will do."

He watched as Arthur weighed the possibilities, then took not one but two sips and pushed the flask quickly away with a cough. His eyes lingered on a few remaining drops hanging on those lips, and he licked his own unconsciously.

"There," Arthur rasped, "I hope that affects my judgment enough for you."

Clicking his tongue reproachfully, Ford stood on his tiptoes and leaned forward until their noses were touching. "I told you, that's not the point…" Gently, he kissed the drops of alcohol away, then sighed against Arthur's mouth. "Today has just been… very long, and I'd rather not spend what's left of it sorting through more misunderstandings and awkward pauses."

He pulled away enough to slip the flask safely back into his satchel – though not before taking a swig of his own – and led his human into the path through the mattresses.

* * *

Trillian finished the last page of her book (_One Hundred to One Odds That There Are Things to Do in Improbability Drive: a Novel_) and stretched. Then she sat back and spent a few minutes thinking how pleasant it was to finish reading a book all the way through without once being interrupted, pestered, or annoyed.

The novelty of this amused her for a few minutes, and then she sighed and admitted to herself that she was a little bored.

She wondered if Ford and Arthur had talked things over yet, and if so how that had ended up.

She wondered where Zaphod was, and if he was still annoyed about earlier.

After a moment's thought, she decided that he probably was and that she should probably do something about that before he wandered off and caused trouble. With another sigh, she put her book down and stood up.

"Eddie?"

The voice of the computer effervesced with particular bubbliness from a speaker above the door.

"Hey there! What can I do for you?"

"Could you tell me where Zaphod is, please?"

"Golly, am I glad you asked," Eddie enthused, "because I most definitely can!"

Shortly after that, she made her way up to the bridge.

Trillian walked in and sat in the chair next to Zaphod's. He was facing the main view screen, his hand hovering almost, but not quite, within range of its on/off sensors. As soon as he noticed her presence the hand dropped, and he made a show of not looking at anything in particular and humming tunelessly to himself. There were a few bottles on the floor around his chair, all empty.

"So," she said after a moment. "About sex."

His blank, disinterested expression didn't change. "I distinctly remember you saying you didn't want any."

She sighed. "I didn't mean it as an insult, I just wasn't in the mood for it at the time."

"Who says there's only one mood for it?"

"Zaphod…"

"You know, the problem with you primates," he said, ever so coolly, "is that you just don't understand sex. People just get laid, all the time, any time. That's how it's supposed to work. Very simple."

"But getting laid isn't simple," Trillian replied. "That's copulation or intercourse or mating, or whatever else. It's not getting laid, having sex, making love…"

She was beginning to remember why she hadn't envied Arthur his apparent necessity to have this sort of conversation with Ford. For a second time, she wondered how that had turned out.

Zaphod frowned, then shook one of his heads. "Confusing," the other head muttered.

"Yes, it's far too complicated," Trillian agreed dryly. "Sometimes I wonder why people still bother. Other than the necessity of keeping the population up, of course."

He swiveled to face her, squinting with his one and a half pairs of eyes. "People," he began challengingly, "should just hook up and break up, like hydrogen bonds in water. If people were like water molecules, life would be good."

Secretly she was impressed that he was displaying this much scientific competence in order to argue his point. After all, she liked him best when he stopped pretending to be a complete idiot. But letting on to that would feed his ego far too much and turn him back into his usual stupid, lecherous self simply because he knew he had earned enough points to get away with it.

The only thing for it was to take him up on his challenge.

"No," she retorted, "because water molecules also experience endless attractive and repulsive forces. There would still be surface tension."

Zaphod frowned, facing her completely now and leaning forward slightly in his chair. "Interaction among water molecules," he said firmly. "Not their individual make-ups."

She leaned forward as well with a small grin. "Water molecules experience dispersion forces between each other," she informed him.

Two of his hands slid onto the armrests of her chair and a third crept onto her knee, tapping idly as he considered this.

"Fine. If people were like hydrogen bonds… Oh, zark it." His third hand slid up her thigh. "Leave my analogies alone, baby, you're driving me crazy."

She laughed and leaned into the kiss, thinking, _Don't understand sex? Ha. The reason this relationship works is because I understand perfectly well. _

* * *

As Ford led him deeper into the store room, Arthur almost lost his nerve.

_I don't know if I can do this_, he thought, and tried to pull his hand out of Ford's. But the Betelgeusian tightened his grip, and a second later they emerged into a clearing in the mattresses.

"My god," Arthur gasped, looking up. "How big is this place?" He was getting a crick in his neck trying to spot the ceiling, but the stacks of mattresses seemed to go up and up into infinity.

Ford shrugged. "Probably smaller than it looks. Most of the lights are kept off to make it look more impressive to potential buyers."

"But… it wasn't even on the market before it was stolen, I thought."

"Well, no. But that's factory settings for you."

Arthur stumbled over a step up, and found that the floor was suddenly a lot springier. He looked down and realized that Ford was leading him to the center of a small pile of mattresses, where a single mattress was ready with a fitted sheet, blanket, and a number of pillows.

_It's all made up for company,_ he thought uneasily. _Why—_

Suddenly Ford spun him around and pushed him onto the made bed. Arthur landed on the pillows, bounced once, and found Ford crouching over him before he had a chance to sit up.

"You're thinking too much again, I can tell," Ford told him. "Stop it. Relax." He brushed a hand along Arthur's face, over his lips, down his neck. "I am not," he added, sliding another hand into Arthur's hair, "going to let you get away just because everything we've done in the past several hours has been wrong up to this point – which I'm not even convinced it was."

He pressed his lips warmly against Arthur's neck, dragging them lightly from shoulder to the hollow behind his ear.

"Never mind the journey as long as where you end up is somewhere worthwhile," he murmured.

Arthur swallowed hard, then nodded. It was hesitant, but a nod nonetheless.

"Good."

Ford took his time undressing him. More time than he would have usually taken, because there was a curious feeling in his stomach as he ran light fingertips along the Earthman's skin and he was trying to figure out what it was. Perhaps it was that this wasn't some beautiful stranger that he would only see once and maybe never even know the name of. The repercussions of whatever might happen next were going to linger.

He _was_ beautiful though, Ford decided. In a familiar, strikingly average, thoroughly _Arthur_ sort of way. Not in any way that would be easy to explain, so he didn't try to as he slid a hand around to Arthur's back and urged him to sit up a little, then slid the dressing gown down his shoulders. He stared into those strangely beautiful gray eyes which he had gotten to know fairly well over the years, well enough to see that they were guarded now.

Reaching for the buttons of the pajama top, Ford paused. He slipped a hand underneath and pressed it against the bare skin of the Earthman's chest and felt muscles tense beneath his fingers. Arthur's eyes fluttered shut for the briefest instant, then shot back open to meet his gaze again as if by sheer willpower alone.

"Arthur, tell me something," Ford murmured. "Did you think I wouldn't notice, or were you afraid that I would?"

"W-what?" Arthur whispered.

Ford sighed and slowly withdrew his hand. There was a slight give, a certain softness to Arthur's body that he liked, but the human would be a hundred times more cuddleable if he would just zarking _relax_.

"It's obvious that you want me. I'm trying to understand what's holding you back, but I'm just not getting it." He returned to the buttons and worked his way down. "Don't you _want_ to want me?"

Arthur's guard seemed to wobble for a moment.

"Forty-two?" he replied weakly.

"…That big of a question?" Ford asked lightly, not knowing quite what to do with this. He sat up and pulled his own shirt and sweater off over his head in one fell swoop, then leaned back down and ran his fingers idly over Arthur's exposed collarbones.

The light touches were sending pleasant little shivers up and down Arthur's spine, and his eyes were almost drifting shut again. "Some, something like that," he muttered.

Ford gently pulled him up again, slid the pajama top all the way off, and tossed it over his shoulder somewhere. His arms slipped around Arthur, pressing their bare chests together, and he rolled his hips just a tiny bit.

"Ahh," Arthur gasped. He pressed his face into the crook of Ford's neck, holding onto him tightly.

"Arthur." Ford stilled and waited until the Earthman lifted his head again. "What do you want?" he asked, brushing back strands of dark brown hair.

_You_, Arthur thought immediately. Everything he wanted was sitting in his lap, pressing against him, ready and willing.

_You, I want you. _Months, years – he'd forgotten how long ago he had started wanting Ford to look at him this way, hoping for, at best, an accidental bumping of hands when walking side by side – of not knowing what to do about this _need_ for his friend, had finally led to this and…

_You you you. _He wanted so badly to just accept it, to let things go where they would and sort out the details later, but he'd had far more experience with pining than he'd had with being wanted in return. Especially by eccentric (by human standards, anyway) alien men.

_Kiss him, _his brain said. _That'll be answer enough._

To which another part of his brain replied, _But what if it isn't?_

To which a third part added, _What if he doesn't understand you want him to love you as well as make love to you?_

To which a fourth part answered, _Love? Is that right? Are you sure?_

To which a fifth part mentioned, _Because if you're not, and if you're not asking for that much, then what's wrong with just fooling around a bit? _

To which a sixth part said, _But even if this is love, if you do want something more, maybe now isn't the best time to talk about it. Maybe if you came to some sort of physical understanding first, it wouldn't be so intimidating to ask for more… _

To which the first part repeated, _So kiss him_.

So Arthur kissed him.

And it was about zarking time.

* * *

_The end. _

_Boo hiss.  
_

_But, Zarquon willing, some day I will get around to writing a sequel. I just don't have the time now and didn't want to let this sit mouldering in my computer, unread for all of eternity. There are still a few twists and turns and tangles that I never quite got around to -- because, obviously, there is no such thing as a _simple_ Happily Ever After. At least not in my brain. I am firmly convinced that Disney movies have been lying to us all for years.  
_


End file.
